De Goudse Verzekeringen: taking an insurance company to the cloud

Instead of planning a huge migration, De Goudse Verzekeringen started moving smaller parts of its development environment to the cloud. By working in this way, they were able to responsibly grow with the technology over the years. For a gradual migration of BizTalk to the Azure cloud, integration became the key topic, in which HSO played an important advisory role.

De Goudse Verzekeringen is a family business founded in 1924 that sells non-life, income and life insurance in cooperation with independent advisors. The focus of this insurer is on SMEs and entrepreneurs.

Where the first policies were delivered by bicycle in 1924, today every insurer relies entirely on automation. From modules for calculating quotations to administrative software for registering the payment of business interruption insurance, everything is digital. Until 2016, De Goudse used on-premises software, data centers and (for many processes) Microsoft's on-premises integration solution: BizTalk Server.

Classic solution without agility

With the classic form of an on-premises integration solution, much of the responsibility lies with the organization and requires a lot of knowledge to manage it yourself. The costs of hardware and licenses are also a major reason to move to the cloud, especially for organizations that want to be more flexible. The modern market demands innovation and agility, and in the cloud this can be realized with a business case that is (usually) easier to get around.

When setting up the cloud environment, De Goudse chose Microsoft solutions, including Azure. De Goudse has a "SaaS before PaaS before IaaS" strategy. The integration reference architecture assumed as many Azure PaaS (Platform as a Service) solutions as possible, and HSO adhered to this as far as possible. In this way, everything could be properly connected to the Azure cloud.

Integrating BizTalk into Azure

Then a really tough job began. De Goudse Verzekeringen started rebuilding Microsoft BizTalk Server from on-premises in the Azure Cloud. HSO played an important role in managing the platform.

With BizTalk in Azure, a well-functioning hybrid cloud environment was set up for the insurance technical systems that were still on-premises, but with each step there was a greater need to move completely to the cloud. In order to anticipate this, API management was activated, which allows webservices and apps to be managed.

First business-critical processes cloud-native in Azure

A year later, the implementation of a SaaS application was the reason to build new integrations. This was the ideal scenario to apply cloud-native integration using Azure Integration Services (iPaaS). Based on the integration reference architecture, HSO drafted a Solution Architecture for this implementation. HSO then worked together with De Goudse specialists to realize the first business-critical processes with cloud-native integrations in Azure.

Working in the cloud requires a proactive approach

On premises, you can work reactively and, for example, keep an outdated server running with a "do not touch" sticker on the side, with all the possible risks... In the cloud, you need to be proactive. Services might evolve and you need to be proactive to keep up. De Goudse has a reliable partner in HSO that proactively advises on the further development and management of the Azure integration cloud.